A cold, rainy day with occasional hail actually resulted in some productive excavation work at Aragatsi Berd.
In locus 51, work descended to bedrock and paved floor areas across the entire LB room, revealing a network of carved bedrock and paved floor supplemented by clay patchwork. Together, these elements produced a flat LB living surface.
Material frequencies of pottery, groundstone tools, and other small finds have spiked at the floor, especially in eastern locus 51, at trench center. Here numerous LB body sherds and two groundstone tools were accompanied by a partial bronze button. Like the bronze ring recovered from operation AB3, this object was located on top of, or near, stone pavers placed over an LB pit (Pit 401).
We plan to draw in the pavers with Lilit starting tomorrow and then pull them and open the pits or pit portions that are accessible from the operation. (The "new" pit, possibly 403, is at least half underneath the northern operation baulk.)
West of wall 45, in locus 52, we continued to descend in the EB floor, exposing additional pottery fragments and wall stones. We opened locus 53 slightly east of the locus 52 floor to begin removal of the LB construction fill. Artifact frequencies are moderate there.